Instruments essential to the title of real property, and which are not kept in a public office as a record, pursuant to law, belong to the person in whom, for the time being, such title may be vested, and pass with the title.
Cal. Civ. Code § 994
Other Kinds of Personal Property
Applied in 3 court decisions — leading case 122 F. Supp. 401 - Federal Home Loan Bank v. Long Beach Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n (1954)
Most recently applied in 795 F. Supp. 2d 1047 - STAMAS v. County of Madera (June 2011)
Enacted 1872.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.